December 15th, 2005 issue #0450

As a child, Drew Alexander sang in his Episcopal church choir and skipped Sunday school, preferring to sit through lengthy services with his parents.
"The pageantry of the high church Episcopal thing appealed to me a lot," he explains.
It's hard to imagine how that Christian boy became the man Alexander is today: a practicing Hasidic Jew. While the road was long and winding, the journey, Alexander says, started with tragedy.

It's one of the most significant changes people can make– to leave a religion in which they've been raised and embrace a new faith.
Family and friends can feel left behind, and let's face it a life of piety is not for the faint of heart. (Three hours of prayer a day, anyone?)
Yet for Drew Alexander, who left Christianity behind for orthodox Judaism and for Lauren Winner, who first became an orthodox Jew and then converted to evangelical Christianity, keeping the faith has big rewards.

Judging from her religious history, it's clear: when Lauren Winner does something, she does it all the way. When this daughter of a Jewish father and a lapsed Baptist mother decided to become more involved in Judaism as a 16-year-old college freshman, she didn't simply attend Friday services. She went all the way, officially converting to Judaism and practicing as an Orthodox Jew.